A & S Dog Treats LLC, Dauphin, PA
How it all started: I love my fur babies and we have had dogs all my life. My dogs tend to be a bit spoiled, and I always loved giving them treats and making sure they have the best life possible. After all they are only here for a short time. If you ever look at the ingredients on some of the dog treats you will probably hard time understanding some of the ingredients. I know I did.
I wanted to give them treats that would be from natural products with no preservatives. We found that making out own cookies helped our dogs a lot we were able to tailor the cookies to their diet and make things that they loved while staying natural and fresh. Soon enough our friends and family wanted some as well.
We had many fails when we first started because we did not know how to make them last without adding preservatives to them. We started dehydrating at first and this helped but they still lasted only a month. When we first started looking into freeze drying, we were amazed to learn that it would make our treats last for years. This would be perfect.
Our main treats are peanut butter and while these never had an issue keep them fresh probably because they didn't last long in our house, other cookies such as banana and beef & bacon did. It was a learning process how to make sure our cookies still tasted great and were able to last a long time. Many dogs were used in taste testing, and I know my friends and family loved it when I was trying a new batch to make sure I had it right.
My son is Autistic, and we have a service dog that goes to many events with him, so we had to make sure we had small treats or training bites as well call them to reward her for her hard work. We are always coming up with new treats to help dogs with certain conditions and help them live a longer, healthier life.
My daughter came up with a recipe for a dog friendly birthday cake, one that would let them celebrate important milestones while keeping them healthy and happy. We first tested this with cupcakes, and they were a huge hit with all our pets.
My family and I started this business because dogs are family and we need to give them the best quality of life, and to do that you need to make sure that you keep them healthy.
